Try, try and try again

Abraham Lincoln said, "Whatever you are, make sure you are a good one" and in an effort to step up to the wearing of my somewhat dusty housewifely hat, I made a light lunch for my husband and I to enjoy without our children. During the course of this interlude of domestic bliss my husband looked up from his lunch and, observing my watering eyes, enquired if I had had an allergic reaction to something.

I explained that I had been choking.

However, despite sitting inches away from me across our table, he had been so lost in thought he completey missed my distress and there was a look of incredulous surprise across his face as it dawned on him he had, despite his proximaty, no recollection of what had happened to me.
Basking in the security of the past weeks "warmer glow", I decided, with some misgivings, to use the opportunity to tell him this "moment of absence" was not an isolated incident.

I was totally unprepared for what followed.

Whereas I saw my kindly and carefully voiced disclosure as a way of opening a dialogue from which we might find our way back, my husband saw it as an accusation which required defending.  No amount of explaining  the frequency of these "absent episodes" was not a judgement but merely an observation, would deter him from his argument.  Despite the fact he had acquired, for himself, proof they were a reality, he could not accept his opinion on their frequency was simply invalid.  I thought our objective should be not to query their existence, but to lovingly discuss how best for us both to live with them.

Overwhelmingly tired of the life I could see stetching ahead for me yet desperate to ensure my children do not grow up without a father, I visualised the coming years with a husband constantly in denial of all circumstances and all attributes which displeased him. I was destined be struggling silently to provide family stabilty at the cost of any personal expectations of happiness and retired to bed early with a very heavy heart.

Waking early, I crept out of bed to make a start on my plans for a future without him, only to notice his clothes on the floor discarded from the night before.  They lay carefully and childishly folded in a pile which was too small for their volume and I knew this unsolicited task had been undertaken in an effort to seek my approval.  With my resolve still intact, I made my way to the bedroom door imagining it to be the portal between me and the rest of my life.  My husband stirred with the noise of  my opening the latch the and it was then I heard his muffled words,

"Come back to bed so I can make you a cup of tea".

"Alright then", was my well practised reply,"if you are sure you don't mind"

Whatever I am, be it lover of my family, lover of my husband or just a lover of tea,  I have always endeavoured, like Abraham Lincoln suggests "to be a good one".  I have tried to do the right thing and in this instance I am sure of one thing and one thing only, I am definitely good at trying again and again and again.

The Time Traveller's Wife

On reading Audrey Niffenegger's Time Travellers Wife I became instantly aware of a parallel between the love affair portrayed in her book and my own relationship with my husband and although, today, my husband has been an integral part of family life and performed his favourite role of helpful husband and loving father, this is not how life is every day. Today he has both spoken to me and sympathised with the debilitating migraine which has tormented me for hours. I know, today, I exist in a world we both share but, as a Time Traveller's Wife, I have grown to accept there are periods throughout our seventeen years of marriage when the situation is completely different and on these occassions my husband will be absent for days.

I am given no indication when and for how long he will be gone in spirit, if not in body. If pressed he would say we have a communication problem but in truth he is simply not here.  Oblivious to conversations with him about friends and family he is at best dismissive or disinterested when he is "away", however more often than not he is completely unhearing. Lost in a Walter Mitty existence where he forges ahead with experimental endeavours and moneymaking schemes, he has no idea I am left unacknowledged for days. Noticing nothing about me, our children or our environment, he remains absorbed and silent in thought and when, on his return, he finds me angry at his neglect, he is hurt and confused. Firm in his belief he has not only been present but engaged and communicative of his dreams when in reality he has not.

Perceiving himself to be a craftsman of conversation and annoyed when I cannot follow his fragmented train of thought, he sees only someone finding fault rather than a wife attempting to piece together Time Travelling adventures he has embarked on without her. Knowing himself  to be a loving man and the source of much affection, he has no notion I have lived my life in silence for days while he has been frequenting his own separate world alone. 

Day in and day out I live with the fear he may be planning to set sail on yet another reckless voyage believing he has my approval.  Terrified he might, in the blink of an eye, travel once again to a place where he is confident of his chances of financial success not realising I am neither at his side and nor have I agreed to the trip. The man I married knew I feared debt, yet time travelling provides him the means with which to justify his decision to journey into treacherous debt infested waters. For him, it was a calculated risk taken in a land where his decisions were always good ones and his status as a businessman invincible. I have no doubt, in his mind, I was at his side urging him on, fully aware of all the dangers.

Alone yet again, today and every day I take up arms in my communication battle with his creditors. Isolated by both his absences and his inability to engage with our problems has discouraged me from sharing any facet of my debt fighting crusade with him. Now, I too have a parallel universe in which he plays no part. Fully aware of the dangers of time travel, I have ensured my own feet remain firmly planted in the here an now. I can only hope while I try and make the best of a very bad lot, my husband is not silently planning more business gambles in a land which is completely foreign to me, in a place where I have no wish to be a visitor.